expressing the uptake of transuranium nuclides from soil.

in C.R. values are observed (ERDA, 1975; Schulz, 1977).

Wide ranges

A series of

studies has been undertaken to ascertain for a given plant species and a

given soil if the C.R. is constant. It is well known that C.R. will
vary with addition of chelating agents (Adriano et aZ., 1971; Wallace,

1972a,b).
The major purpose of this study was to determine how
constant the C.R. would be with variation in the 2*/Am concentration
uniformly mixed in soil.
One set was made without chelate and one with
the chelator DTPA

(diethylenetriaminepentaacetate).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The experiment was set up with Yolo loam soil (Typic Xerorthents, fine,

silty, mixed, thermic) with activity of **lAm at 4,000, 10,000, 20,000,

and 40,000 dpm/g soil.

The activity was blended in for 1 hr with a

batch mixer.
There were four replications of 1,000 g each with and
without DTPA, applied in solution at the rate of 100 ug/g soil.
Nitrogen
at the rate of 100 yg N per g soil as NH,NO3 was added to each pot.

Soil moisture was maintained near -1/3 bar. Bush bean plants (Phaseolus
vulgarts L. cv. Improved Tendergreen) were grown for 22 days, after

which they were harvested.

After standing for two months, these pots of soil were seeded to barley

(Hordeum vulgare L. Atlas 57).

Nitrogen was then applied as above.

More DTPA was applied to the DTPA treatments (150 ug/g) one week after
plants (20/pot) were seeded.

One-third were harvested after another

week. In 1] more days, another 1/3 were harvested and the other 1/3
after 13 more days. Then a second crop for all was harvested after 28

additional days.
These were designated as harvests 1, 2, 3, and 4.
AI1l
were dried, weighed, and counted for 24 lam by gamma well counting.
The
counting time was usually for 1 hr.
Only the data for barley are re-

ported in this paper.

In addition to C.R. values, "Y" uptake values

were computed from the formula

(C1/Co)* = uptake ratio (Wallace, 1977).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The activity of @+!Am in plants was related to concentration in the soil
The DTPA increased uptake manyfold and the effect was related
(Table 1).
to both concentration and time.
The ratio of 24!Am for with DTPA
without DTPA increased markedly with concentration except at the last

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